£2,369,000,000.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18851, 23 January 1933, Page 5

£2,369,000,000.

UNPAID DEBTS TO BRITAIN

SWINDLES AND DEFAULTS. If the world paid Great Britain what it owes her, Britain could live “free of charge” without having to raise a penny in taxation for the next four years, says a recent article in the Sunday Graphic." During the last 60 years it adds, investors in Britain have been the victims of a series of colossal defalcations. The- defaulters.have been foreign Governments and unscrupulous city corporations. Nearly every country in the world has held the British people to ransom. Sir Arthur Samuel, M.P., has made the following attempt to compile a list of this indebtedness: —"There is the £’15,000,000 borrowed by the Southern States of America soon after the Civil War. Not a cent has been repaid. The Federal Government disclaims all responsibility. With interest for 60 years this debt amounts to £50,000,000. Sin'ce 1868 the railways of America have taken the money of British Investors to build tracks across the continent. Most of these railways at one time or another have become bankrupt, and have been placed in the hands of the receivers. That money, the savings of thousands of English people, is lost for ever. How much it is Impossible to say, but the amount cannot be less than £250,000,000. Mexico also borrowed large sums for internal development. Succceding governments have either repudiated the debts of the Government before it, or have seized the property The loss amounts to £200,000,000. “Every Government in South America with the exception' of the Argentine, and perhaps one other, has repudiated its debts to British bondholders. The cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Odessa, Kief, and a dozen others borrowed money from British citizens to the amount of £260,000,000. The Soviet Government has brushed aside all claims, and has stated flatly that it never' intends to pay back the money. Recently a British company was awarded by an impartial international tribunal a sum for the confiscation of the Lena goldfield amounting to £13,000,000. The Soviet Government replied tersely that it did not recognise any tribunal, impartial, International, or otherwise.”

Sir Arthur Samuel did not discuss war debts. They are, however, being paid for by the British taxpayer, says Hie Sunday Graphic. Russia borrowed £650,000,000 lo carry on Ihe war on the eastern front. The debt lias been wiped out, but with interest, it now amounts to £1,066,480,000. Italy borrowed £570,000,000 to make war. She will have paid bark only £80,000,000 by 1988, representing a loss io Britain of £ !90,000,(>00. Between 1915 and 1918 France borrowed £50,000.000 from British investors. The franc was then worth lOd. It is now worth about 2d, so that Investors will receive back only £10,000,000, representing a loss of £4 0,000,000. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but. these few amounts make the tremendous total of £2,369,00.0,000. This is more than half of Britain's war debt to the United States, and more than a quarter of Hie British national debt, which on last Budget was £7,553,900,000.